Why are So Many Sober Drivers Ending Up With DUI Charges?
Most people assume a DUI charge means the person was drunk or high as a kite. The laws on the books are supposed to protect the public from drunken, reckless drivers, not drag sober people into jail because some cop had a hunch when a roadside test went sideways.
But of course, that’s what’s happening, and this latest story out of Georgia is a disturbing reminder. The numbers show there’s something wrong with the way DUI arrests are being made, especially when drug impairment gets tossed into the mix. Because if hundreds of people in one state were arrested, booked, charged, and then later proven sober by blood tests, that’s a problem.
An exclusive Channel 2 Action News Investigation finds hundreds of Georgians arrested for DUI in 2025 later were proven to be sober by GBI blood tests.
In suspected DUI cases, the GBI tests samples for drugs only if they are found to be under the legal limit for alcohol.
Through an open records request, Channel 2 Action News Consumer Investigator Justin Gray obtained records showing that 701 people tested by the GBI in 2025 had no illegal or prescription drugs found in their system during toxicology screenings.
Smyrna resident Lenny Daniel is one of those.
“It’s a shame to be arresting innocent people like that who did nothing wrong,” Daniel said after Gray showed him the open records data.
Channel 2 Action News Investigates first introduced you to Daniel in an October 2025 story.
The 65-year-old widower was arrested and charged with DUI by Kennesaw police even after blowing a .000 on the breathalyzer after a traffic stop.
The arresting officer said he suspected Daniel was under the influence of drugs based on the result of a field sobriety test.
In a November story, we showed how 19-year-old college student McClain Fineran was also arrested for DUI based on a field sobriety test.
After the kicker on the Shorter University football team blew .000 on a breathalyzer, Rome police suspected marijuana impairment and charged him with DUI after a fender bender in a college parking lot. Fineran had called police to the scene himself to report that he had hit a parked car.
“I don’t drink, never have. Haven’t done drugs, never had. It’s just not what I do. And he said well I have the suspicion that you have,” Fineran told Gray in November.
Both men, Fineran and Daniel spent the night in jail and were formally charged with DUI. In both cases, GBI blood tests eventually came back clean for drugs and alcohol.
Daniel says it is disturbing to see the number of other Georgians that had the same thing happen.
These poor people were arrested, jailed, and formally charged, only for the bloodwork to come back clean later.
What a mess.
As with all cluster-bleep issues like this, what we are seeing now is probably just the tip of the iceberg. If somebody really dug into the numbers in other states, there is a very good chance they would find the same thing: sober people being arrested because of these goofy roadside sobriety tests that are so easy to fail. Plenty of innocent sober people would bomb them too.
These tests are designed to make people fail. Officers are looking for even the smallest mistake… like your big toe didn’t extend quite enough, or something. It’s wild.
As a matter of fact, many lawyers will tell people to politely refuse to even take the test.
Watch:
This young man refused the sobriety test and was taken to jail, where he promptly blew a 0.00. Yes, he “won,” but it is deeply unfair that he had to go through this nonsense in the first place. There has to be a better way, right?
There’s got to be a better way than these useless field sobriety tests. If officers are going to accuse someone of being impaired, there should be stronger evidence, better tools, and faster confirmation before some poor sober guy gets hauled off to jail.
https://revolver.news/2026/04/why-are-so-many-sober-drivers-ending-up-with-dui-charges